The south of England has 50 per cent more millionaires than the rest of
Britain put together in a stark demonstration of the North-South divide, new
figures show.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) one in eight homes in London, the South East, the South West and East Anglia is lived in by people whose total wealth is greater than £967,000.

This compares to just under one in 13 homes in the rest of Britain.

The figures mean that the south of England has 56 per cent more households inhabited by people worth over £967,000 than the Midlands, the North, Wales and Scotland. According to the ONS, wealth is made up of property assets, pension wealth, savings and other physical assets such as cars, furniture and jewelry.

Experts said that the ONS’s findings show that Britain is “deeply divided”.

Ed Cox, a director at IPPR North, a think tank, said that the analysis is “the latest evidence of a growing North-South divide".

Related Articles

“With all political parties preaching ‘one nation’ politics it is about time they recognised that measures to rebalance the economy are simply not working and the country remains deeply divided,” said Mr Cox.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, said: “These figures show that too much wealth and power is concentrated in London and the South East. These regional inequalities are making whole areas of the country unaffordable, creating employment black-spots on other parts and are holding back our economy.”

As well as showing that Britain has a rigid north-south divide when it comes to money, the ONS’s research found that the vast majority of wealth in the country is concentrated in relatively few homes.

The richest 10 per cent of households in Britain own almost 44 per cent of the country’s wealth, the ONS said. Conversely, the bottom 50 per cent of households own just 10 per cent of its wealth.

Using figures from its most recent Wealth and Assets Survey, the ONS said that top 10 per cent of households in Britain are worth £4.5 trillion, around 850 times as much as the bottom 10 per cent, who have wealth of £5.2 billion.

For a household to belong to the richest tenth of homes in Britain it needs to have total assets greater than £967,000. To be in the bottom tenth of homes in the country, a household’s wealth has to be less than £13,000.

Over half of the wealth of people in the top 10 per cent is made up of pension pots, the ONS said.

It found that the median pension wealth among Britain’s richest people is £742,000. This is because people in this group tend to be approaching retirement and therefore have accumulated large pension pots.

Meanwhile the bottom 50 per cent of households had average pension wealth of just £4,000.

The highest 10 per cent of households were found to have average property wealth of £340,000, compared to zero in the lowest half, while net financial wealth – savings and investments – was £123,200 in the top 10 per cent compared to £400 in the bottom half of households.

Nearly 14 per cent of households in the richest bracket were found to have personalized number plates on their car, compared to 2.5 per cent of the bottom half of households, the ONS said.

IPPR North’s Mr Cox said: “Northern city regions don’t need handouts but do need central Government to let go of the powers and funds to drive economic development outside London. Northern prosperity is key to unlocking the over-heated South.”

What the ONS said on...

...Education

People who head households in the richest 10 per cent of homes in Britain are three times more likely to have a degree than people who head households in the poorest 50 per cent of homes, the ONS said.

The group found that over 55 per cent of “household heads” living in Britain’s wealthiest 10 per cent of homes have got a “qualification at degree level or above”.

This compares with 16 per cent of household heads in the bottom half of all homes.

There is a stark divide in terms of occupation too. Almost four in five household heads in the richest 10 per cent of homes are in professional occupations or “high skilled management” roles.

This falls to just a quarter of household heads in the least wealthy half of homes in Britain.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, said the differences in education feed into the north-south divide, as people in the south-east and London tend to be paid more.

Mr Barber said: “We need a new growth plan that ends our reliance on financial services and encourages growth across the country. However, this will not be achieved if ministers persist with half-baked policies like regional pay, which would only entrench existing inequalities.”

...Age

Four in ten homes in the wealthiest 10 per cent of households in Britain are headed by people approaching retirement, the ONS said.

In just under 40 per cent of the richest houses, the household head is aged between 55 and 64.

This age group is well-represented because income increases as people become “older and more experienced”, the ONS said.

People aged between 55 and 64 also tend to have a large pension pot which has been built up over years of working. However they have not yet started to draw on the pension as they are yet to reach retirement age.

Conversely, a quarter of “household heads” in the bottom half of all homes are aged between 25 and 34, the ONS said.

“At a younger age it will be more necessary for individuals to borrow money. Later in life the prospect of higher earnings will enable the paying off of liabilities and the greater opportunity to accumulate wealth,” the ONS said.

The second age group with the largest number of people in the top wealth bracket is people between 45 and 54, followed by people aged between 65 and 74.

...Average wealth

Despite the credit crisis and the recession, typical wealth in Britain has actually increased since the economic downturn started.

Using data from the Wealth and Assets Survey 2008-2010, the ONS said that median household wealth stands at £232,000. This means that half of all homes in Britain had total assets worth less than this and half had assets worth more than this.

The last time that the ONS carried out the survey – between 2006 and 2008 – it found that median household wealth was £204,500.

The figure for median wealth is likely to have grown due to the rising value of people’s pension pots – people in so-called defined benefit scheme accrue money no matter what the economy is doing – and the relatively buoyant price of property in London and the south-east.

Last year house prices in the south-east grew by 3.1 per cent, while prices in place such as Reading grew by over 12 per cent.